How To Make Homemade Banana Pudding

I LOVE and adore banana pudding, real banana pudding. By real I mean the kind where you make the pudding from scratch and pour it warm over a bowl of yummy Nilla wafers and fresh cut bananas. That stuff with boxed pudding mix cannot even come close to how this tastes. If you think you’ve had banana pudding before and it involved a boxed pudding mix…THAT was not banana pudding! THIS is Banana Pudding!

The complete recipe is listed at the bottom of this page. I always insist on Nilla brand wafers. I am not a big brand person (alright, I do have a thing about White Lily flour), but if you’re going to make banana pudding, might as well do it right. For my Banana pudding, we won’t be doing a meringue. I like meringue but know far too many people who don’t. Plus that adds an extra step, which may be a wee bit complicated for someone who has never made it before. If you want to make a meringue and don’t know how, just visit my Lemon Meringue pie tutorial for complete instructions along with pictures!

I just want you to make the pudding, I don’t want you to feel you have to sit through an entire culinary class. That having been said, if you put Cool whip or any type of refrigerated dairy topping on this divine concoction after we are done making it, I will personally hunt you down and haunt you for the rest of your life. ~sweet smile~We’re going to do this right

Put a layer of Nilla wafers in the bottom of a medium sized mixing bowl. Slice a banana over the top. Repeat these layers until you’ve used up all your Nilla wafers and bananas. It really is important that you put Nilla wafers first, by the way. These are going to soak up all the yummy pudding that settles at the bottom of your bowl.

I use a mixing bowl because that is what my mother always used. She had a Pyrex Spring Blossom mixing bowl, it was enormous. She must have made at least two recipes of banana pudding each time she made it. Seeing that bowl on the counter was always a welcome sight!

Crack your three eggs and separate the whites from the yolks. Since we aren’t making a meringue, we won’t be using the whites. You can save them for another use or throw them away (which I did because….I just care about my banana pudding right now.)

Place 1/3 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar (or Splenda), and a dash of salt in a saucepan. You can use a double broiler for this and not have to fret over it so much, but I just like living on the edge. Muhahaha! My trick for substituting Splenda for sugar in this is to always use just a wee bit less than the recipe calls for. If it calls for a cup of sugar, I might do a cup minus two tablespoons of Splenda. To me, that keeps it from tasting artificial.

Add milk to saucepan.

Put this on the stovetop on medium low heat and stir it really well with a whisk. You can also just use a spoon for this.

When you are done stirring it up it will look something like this.

Now settle in and BE PATIENT. You need to stir the pot constantly, scraping the bottom so none of it gets a chance to stick and scorch. This will take about fifteen minutes so I usually get something to read while I stand there and stir because I don’t think I’ve ever “just” done one thing for fifteen minutes straight.

Today I read a few articles from the new issue of PopSci. I love that magazine. This one shows you how you can turn your iPod or even iPhone into a projector that will project movies onto your wall up to 5′ x 7′! All you need are a small cosmetic mirror, a cardboard box, some tape, and a lense from an old slide projector. I actually want to do this. Anyone have an old slide projector? ~grins~

Seriously, be patient, keep stirring, don’t turn the heat up past four. This is going to take a long time and do nothing, but then ALL OF A SUDDEN it will be thicker.

Yes, I need to clean my stove. I started to photoshop that out but then decided…..”eh”.

Now, your pudding isn’t going to get super thick, but after about fifteen minutes of stirring, it will suddenly get thicker. The consistency will be about what that boxed pudding is right after you mix it before it sets well. TAKE IT OFF THE EYE! Quick! we don’t want it to scorch or keep getting thicker. Now if you end up with scorched pudding or lumpy pudding, just use it anyway and pay attention to me when I tell you to slow down next time!

Add a teaspoon of vanilla and stir.

Immediately pour over your bananas and wafers.

Let this sit for about five minutes so the pudding has time to soak into the wafers. THIS IS SO GOOD! Eat it warm, then refrigerate leftovers. I prefer to eat the leftovers cold. YUMM!

Comments

My 16yr old daughter & I have made this twice now. The first time we made this recipe & second recipe that was required to be baked. This recipe won Last night (2nd time) we made this recipe and another recipe containing pre made pudding, cool whip, and condensed milk.. This recipe won AGAIN❤️ Wouldn’t modify a thing! My family loves it this way, and I LOVE spending 15 extra minutes talking to my daughter as she consistently stirs the pudding❤️

It don’t get no better than this banana pudding recipe. My family has been making this same recipe
for decades.
If someone has a better one please post. I have to make to test it know if its better. But, there is no way.
Maybe your not from the south> that must be what it is.

My mother, who passed away in 2016 at age 103 yrs made this banana pudding when we were growing up. It is the only true way to make a banana pudding. We like the egg white meringue, so my mother would beat the egg whites until stiff, spread on top of the pudding and bake in the oven at about 400 degrees until golden brown. Really great.

I remember my mom making this recipe and she used real sugar and a can of carnation milk, a can of milk and an equal can of water, taste more homemade than with regular milk..Shes from Chattanooga Tennessee

I have made this banana pudding for exactly 4 minths it’s the talk of our monthly family day discussion I have never like the pre pudding mix so the homemade pudding does the job very well.. the only thing that I am impatient on is the waiting fir the pudding to thicken .. but at last when it gas thicken thehinemade pudding makes the banana pudding

I use Sweet ‘n’ Low for sweetening rather than Splenda. The Splenda is probably where the strange taste is coming from. The day it is made it will not be real sweet but the next day you will not be able to tell the difference. With Sweet ‘n’ Low you don’t get the after taste and since you don’t cook it in the oven you won’t have a problem with it. My grandchildren can not tell the difference. Once my grand daughter saw me making it and could not believe it had Sweet ‘n’ Low in it. When she tasted it, she agreed it tasted just like always..great!!

My 16yr old daughter & I have made this twice now. The first time we made this recipe & a second recipe, that was required to be baked. This recipe won !! Last night (2nd time) we made this recipe, and another recipe containing: pre made pudding, cool whip, and condensed milk.. This recipe won AGAIN❤️ Wouldn’t modify a thing! My family loves it this way, and I LOVE spending 15 extra minutes talking to my daughter as she consistently stirs the pudding❤️

Love your comment section! I just wanted to add a hint – mix your sugar and flour together, it will get rid of little lumps of flour. You could also sift the mixture through a sifter. If I do not make a meringue, I make REAL whipped cream! It sends you over the moon❣️

I used a wafer thin almond cookie. I had several packages on hand and no Vanilla wafers.
I have never made homemade pudding, just lemon filling for pie which is very similar . I rarely use recipes I love to cook from scratch rarely measuring exact.

However I had never made pudding , i give this recipe 10 out of 10 stars, oh , and I never rate things . Best banana pudding ever, my husbands fav thing and I managed to make it even better.

I’ve usedpineapples or strawberries the banana pudding is great with either.. I never made it with different fruit before but the family was crazy inline with the pineapple banana pudding made the exact way accept I used pineapples as well

Omg…after losing my Grandmother this year, it’s this time of year where recipes as this one mean so much this is the closest I have come to her recipe, making banana pudding from scratch. I have craved this so much, and I truly thank you for this great Real recipe..I will be making it for Christmas

The recipe is great. Years ago I made this exact recipe; wouldn’t change a thing. I learned a new trick, layering the cookies and bananas before adding the hot pudding. I love reading the comments, some of them give me a chuckle. Thanks!

Thank you Soo much for the recipe. I’m from Texas. I was brought up on this recipe. This is the Real banana pudding recipe. I’m making this for Easter on Sunday. Easter will be at our home this year…. Thanks Christy Jordan. HAPPY EASTER’.

I’m afraid can’t recommend making this low carb. The vanilla wafers and bananas are essential and neither are low carb friendly. This is one of those treats you would just have on occasion and eat a small amount of – but it would be worth it even then.

Anything other than the recipe from the Nilla Wafers box is just unacceptable! My family recently had our annual crawfish boil and as always, I’m in charge of bringing the ‘nanner’ pudding. To feed this group I had to make not a double, not a triple, but a SEXTUPLE batch! I usually use a dutch oven over a stock pot but this time was a rebel and cooked it over the heat. It came out fine but I sure was nervous the whole time. So happy to see there are others out there who understand what is and what isn’t banana pudding!

Good gravy my comment sounds awful tacky after I re-read it. My apologies if I offended anyone. I just meant that this recipe, which I believe is the same as the one on the box except for the individual layers, is how banana pudding is meant to be made; not that pretend kind with pudding mix and Cool Whip.

i am trying to find the recipe for this that was on the box in the 50’s and 60’s. back when the box said nabisco vanilla wafers, and the flour in that recipe was measured by table spoons, not 1/3 cup. do you have any idea where i can get that recipe?